


Our Friend Ayem

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Tall She Was and Golden-Skinned [4]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Elder Scrolls Fusion, Crossover, Dragon Age Lore, Elder Scrolls Lore, Flashbacks, Friendship, Gen, Hero Worship, Morrowind, Reminiscing, Self-Discovery, Self-Doubt, supportive friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 19:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13324806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: An overview of Inquisitor Airanarie's relationship with some of the companions she has managed to recruit at this point, their reactions to her un-Thedosian appearance, and her own sense of identity in relation to being an Altmer trapped in a different world, and to a whole cult forming about her (which brings about some unpleasant associations with what little she knows of the Dunmer lore).





	Our Friend Ayem

Of all the many races inhabiting the lands of Nirn, be those lands close and familiar like the wooded, mountainous homelands of the human nations, or remote and mystical like the jagged icy shores of Akavir and the coral reefs of Thras, the Breach between universes just had to suck in an Altmer. The daughter of a people that scarcely has any similarities to the natives of Thedas, this unknown world that the tear in the fabric of reality has taken her to.  
  
By the gods (no, she had best take care not to use language like that: this realm only worships one deity, and its priesthood is most overzealous about making sure that no-one gets... ideas). By the, um, Maker, she would have found it so much easier to blend in were she a Redguard or a Nord, as clans of similar humans abound in Thedas, in the sunlit, seaside cities of Rivain and in the valleys of those rugged mountains she sees out of the window of the cabin she has been given in the village of Haven. A Breton, too, would have felt far more at home among the Orlesians, with their love for building palatial halls, and shocking everyone else with their elaborate fashion, and spinning political intrigue. An ashen-skinned Dunmer might have passed for a particularly short, hornless Qunari; whereas a Bosmer, given the short stature and wiry frame of this race, could have easily been mistaken for one of the Thedosian elves - or even dwarves, for that matter, since, like the mer of Tamriel, they can grow rather impressive facial hair.  
  
But no. She is an Altmer.   
  
Airanarie of Alinor, daughter of a highborn lord and lady (not that she ever took much pride in that) and one-time battlemage of the glorious Aldmeri army (much to her regret).   
  
Tall, with almond eyes the colour of honey and blood (two of the things that flow so freely from her kin's lips and hands, respectively), and a body that seems cast out of solid gold.   
  
At least she is not a Khajiit or an Argonian... Oh no. That sounded wrong. Like something a Thalmor would say.   
  
What she means is... The idea of beastfolk is utterly unheard of in Thedas, and any unfortunate child of the Moons or the Hist that found their way here might well have been put down on sight.   
  
But even if her lack of fur and scales has prompted the locals to show a bit more mercy, nothing screams 'I am not of this world' like the typical Altmeri height and skin and eye colour. And, from what she's learned, Thedosians are not at all prepared to embrace the knowledge that there are other worlds apart from theirs.  
  
Take that Seeker, Lady Cassandra, for one. It did not take Airanarie long to see that she stands by her Maker with as much devout ferocity as a Nord that believes in the existence of Talos; and as the Thedosian Temple (or, well, Chantry) insists that the world created by this Maker is the only one on existence, the poor human positively reeled when her bald elf associate informed her who Airanarie was.   
  
The Altmeri traveller's first few days in the Inquisition were spent under the undying glare of the Seeker, who studied every tiniest pore on her face with such intensity as if she suspected the wretched orifices of committing some grievous crime against humanity (all right, that's some awkward phrasing; Airanarie's communication skills really did grow rusty over the thirty years of solitude in the forests of Skyrim).  
  
But at least, even if Lady Cassandra might have been unable to accept the existence of Tamriel, she did mellow towards Airanarie herself - after watching her use her magical green scar to seal a whole succession of Rifts: smaller cracks that spread through this world's counterpart of the barrier between Mundus and Oblivion in the wake of the Breach, each letting through dozens of demons, many-eyed, loop-mouthed, and always ravenous for soft mortal flesh.  
  
After the Great War, Airanarie has had little fondness for her own destructive magic, and each spark of conjured flame has served her as an agonizing reminder of the smoking plains of Cyrodiil, and the screams let out by the human soldiers when they dropped to their knees, with their helmets, melted in the heat of an Aldmeri battle master's spell charge, weeping scorching silvery drops over their twisted faces. But when you see a splash of unnatural green light spreading through the air, carrying with it deformed monstrosities that would have made Namira's eyes spark in glee; and when the said monstrosities open their rancid maws (which sometimes stretch along their stomachs and sometimes take up the entire front of their... faces) and, with a juicy crunch, rip the curving, dripping spine out of a horse while it is still alive... Well, that is not the most opportune moment to mope about recalling her nightmarish past.   
  
And so, Airanarie has already lost count of times when she unleashed searing purple lightning to shatter the half-exposed, rotting green ribcage of a demon. Or, for that matter, when she summoned a smoky ethereal bow and planted a see-through but still deadly arrow in the socket of some ruffian who had decided to make use of the chaos and prey on terrified refugees (much to the amazement of her fellow ranged fighter, the dwarf with the crossbow, who just had to distract himself from combat for a couple of seconds to fish out a stack of paper from his thick overcoat and scribble something down).   
  
And eventually, the Seeker approached Airanarie with an uncharacteristically sheepish handshake, when their little travelling party was done leading a lost farm animal back to its homestead (the creature, horned and fluffy like a typical Skyrim cow, but with a more massive skull, was apparently called a druffalo, and was the gentlest giant Airanarie had ever had the pleasure of soothing and petting and beckoning to safety through a Rift-pockmarked wasteland).  
  
'I... I have to apologize for distrusting you,' Cassandra said, with a stifled cough.   
  
'I still do not know what to make of... what Solas insists on saying about you. The... The very existence of... wherever it is you came from... Challenges all I have been taught to believe. But it has been... very wrong of me to take out my frustration on you. I have no way of knowing how I will surpass this challenge of mine, not yet. But you - all philosophy aside, just you as a person - are brave, and capable, and eager to help us. So... How about we start over? Turn over a new leaf. As comrades in arms'.   
  
'I would like that,' Airanarie smiled, hesitantly clasping the tips of two of the Seeker's fingers and giving them a couple of tiny tugs.  
  
She does hope that this marked the beginning of friendship between the two of them - but she takes care not to get too carried away by daydreaming.  Her friendship-building skills have always been far below average.  
  
The other (female) advisors that watch over Airanarie have taken the revelation of her identity slightly better. In a manner of speaking.   
  
Leliana - the pale, hooded woman with icy grey eyes that only warm up on the rarest occasions (and not for long, either, much to Airanarie's regret) - has barely made any comments. But as Airanarie moves about Haven, helping the newcomers settle in as best she can, running errands for the alchemist (so wonderful that this engaging, nerve-calming craft exists in this realm!), or seeking out some specific companion whose advice she'd like to hear, she often feels a piercing gaze at the back of her head. Agents. Watching. Silently measuring her every step. And dissolving into the white snowy haze the moment she turns her head, or as much as slants her eyes to look.   
  
These people Leliana's trained certainly have skills to rival the Dominion's finest.  
  
Josephine, in turn - the lovely, well-spoken Ambassador in a ruffled gilded outfit - was greatly flustered when she was first introduced to Airanarie. First by her height (Airanarie did feel really bad about casting such a huge shadow over the human’s writing desk), then, by the private interview with Solas and Airanarie about what he had found in her memories.  
  
'A whole different world?!' she exclaimed, flourishing her quill through the air so that it drizzled ink over Airanarie's hands, which she had clasped shyly on her stomach. 'Oh my - that is fascinating if true! But... But we cannot let word get out, not yet! The Chantry has denounced us as heretics already; toppling its cosmological teachings with such a hefty blow will not lend further credence to our cause! I... I do beg your pardon, milady Airanarie; you must be quite incensed by us talking of your home this way!'  
  
'I understand,' Airanarie reassured her.  
  
And she did mean it. She cannot be certain if she will ever leave this world, or if its children ever get a chance to catch a glimpse of Nirn, much less walk its soil like she walks the soil of Thedas. And not everyone is as gracious as Cassandra or Josephine when their view of the universe is disproved: she knows. She has had dealings with the Thalmor.  
  
And so, most of the other Thedosians she has been getting to know are yet to find out about Tamriel. They have not even told the fourth advisor, General... No, what was the correct title... Commander. Commander Cullen. The fair-haired man in a fur cloak, with the built and rugged handsomeness of a Nord. And the outlook of one, apparently.   
  
His mind still bears scars from magical torture, Leliana explained in a hushed tone, and his approach to the unknown is to stand between it and those he cares about, with his blade bared. He respects magic and its wielders far more now than when his wounds still burned raw, but he has much to unlearn.  
  
Airanarie did not have to be told twice. Even after thirty years of trying to forget, she sometimes hears the gusts of wind turn into the wails of the victims of Thalmor purges; so she has utmost understanding of the Commander's torment, and has so far spared him the tales of other worlds, with their inexplicable and dangerous (most likely, demonic, from his point of view) magic. It is enough for him to know that, though a stranger, Airanarie has Thedas' best interests at heart, and will work tirelessly to keep its people safe.  
  
The other members of her ever-growing inner circle are also being kept in the dark. At least until Airanarie and her advisors feel that they are ready.   
  
Well, barring Solas, who has a great fondness for popping up in Airanarie's dreams the moment she shuts her eyes and submerges in the green waters of... the Fade, and for bombarding her with questions about how magic works on Nirn, and how long the races of mer live, and what civilizations they built. He seems especially eager to learn more of the Chimer, who fell prey to a terrible curse that altered their very bodies, due to the hubris of their power-hungry leaders, who desired to be worshipped as gods, and killed one of their own to achieve their goal.  
  
Sadly, Airanarie is no expert on the history of the Chimer - or rather, the Dunmer; she did read a few books on the subject out of curiosity, but not all of the 'proper Altmer' approved of it, as the 'grey-skinned heretics' are considered inferior, hardly better than humans. But what she did tell Solas delighted him far more than she could have expected: when she got to the part when, one by one, the Tribunal of the Living Gods fell, and the Dunmer returned to the long-forgotten beliefs of their ancestors, he was so satisfied that the ghostly aura that had cloaked him when he entered Airanarie's dreams positively glowed.  
  
He did not even pay much attention to the story that Airanarie had been meaning to tell him next: how the disappearance of the Tribunal disrupted the flow of magic that protected the Dunmeri homeland, and how it all culminated with a giant rock propelling from the sky into the heart of a fiery mountain, and plunging all around it into a fiery inferno that turned the air into dense, flaking ash and the water into squelching acid, and claimed the lives of thousands of people.  
  
And oh. She didn't exactly keep her origins secret from Varric, the dwarf that is nothing like the long-lost Deemed of Tamriel - and, according to the others, nothing like his own Thedosian kin either.   
  
She did not make a direct confession to him, but when they returned to Haven after one of their very first expeditions - to recruit a priestess named Mother Giselle - Varric plopped down next to Airanarie on the low, splintering wooden bench in front of a huge bonfire, where she was resting, with her sorely legs pulsing rest stretched forward and her hands clenched together.  
  
'So,' he drawled slyly, sizing her up. 'You are obviously not from here. I mean, it's not just your looks, but the way you talk, too... Your Common may be perfect pronunciation-wise, but you mix up the most obvious things sometimes... Like you keep trying to call elves mer, what is that about? And those gasps of terror you made when you talked to that girl Minaeve, as if you don't know how Circles work, or have never heard of Tranquility before? Where did the Breach snatch you from?'  
  
'I... I am not certain I can talk to you about my homeland,' Airanarie blurted out, a bit taken by surprise by the dwarf's observation skills.  
  
And her surprise did not end there: instead of attempting to squeeze the answers out of her, the dwarf narrowed his eyes and nodded in understanding.  
  
'A classified Inquisition secret, eh? Well, I won't pry; can't give Cassandra any more reasons to turn me into stew. And trust me: even though I can wag my tongue from dawn till dusk if needed, I can also keep my mouth shut about the most important things. But, uh... if you ever feel homesick and in the mood for oversharing with strangers... Just for the sake of getting stuff off your chest... I can lend half an ear. Think of it as supplying an author with hypothetical scenarios. For a book. Purely fictitious'.  
  
Still somewhat taken aback by the whole conversation, Airanarie thanked Varric for the offer. And on some occasions, when they both cannot sleep and share a watch at the campsite, their figures inky black against the sparkling ripples of a moonlit lake, she does tell him - hypothetically - of a city in the branches of a gigantic tree, which oncer made a slow, cyclical walk through the verdant jungle, stopping at the peak of every season at one of the four special sites, held sacred by the locals... Until one day it mysteriously vanished, together with all its people. Or of an ancient mage that went to the most insane lengths to achieve power and immortality, up to transforming himself into an undead creature and ripping half the world apart to steal an amulet that he thought had the capacity to trap the soul of a god. Or - speaking of undead creatures - how about a whole tribe of bloodsucking fiends that live in the bowels of the steaming, sweltering tropical wetlands, and hunt their prey by killing mortal children and donning their skin to gain the trust of their families and then, pounce at them and drain them of every last droplet of life force when they least expect it?  
  
The dwarf listens, one eyebrow raised, and tirelessly dashes his trusty quill back and forth across a rustling stack of parchment.  
  
'I don't know how much of this is you shitting me,' he murmurs, slowly shaking his head, 'But it will make for one heck of a story'.  
  
  
But other than that, other than the three lady advisors, and Varric and Solas, anyone who decides to join the Inquisition has to take Airanarie at face value. As an uncannily tall elf with burning eyes and a most peculiar tan colour. No comments provided.  
  
Some are completely unfazed by it. Like that Warden the Inquisition sought out at Leliana's behest (apparently, these Warden people are quite important: like a whole troop of Martin Septims, sacrificing themselves to push back a great evil that occasionally tries to consume the world; Airanarie thinks one of them was even a long-lost prince).  
  
They found the man, brawny and hairy like he has been touched by Hircine, on a little clearing by the lakeside, knee-deep in swooshing reeds, trying to teach a tremulous flock of confusedly blinking, continuously 'Meep!'ing peasant boys to hold their own against the bandits that had raided their village. Airanarie barely opened her mouth to introduce herself, when one of those encroaching robbers set loose an arrow, aiming somewhere for her throat. The hairy human immediately snapped out of gaping at the bizarre elven stranger before him, and, his reflexes strikingly precise and fast as lightning, raised his shield as high up as he could, to protect her from the incoming blow.  
  
The loud think of arrow against wood sent him reeling backwards, forcing him to lower his defenses - and the next shield that went up, to deflect the piercing volley that followed the first shot, was already Airanarie's. She built a spell barrier around the Warden - flat like the ones she had been taught to cast in Tamriel, rather than one of those glass-like half-globes that Thedosian mages mould out of green or purple light.   
  
Tall and shimmering, it was framed with white tongues of magical flame that hissed and quivered whenever an arrow failed to slash through. This little protective measure bought the Warden enough time to secure his battle stance and grip his sword tighter, so that he could charge off to cleave through the bandits' ranks the moment the spell frizzled out.  
  
And when the dust settled and he lowered himself by the bloodied corpse of one of the ruffians, lamenting his demise with a quiet, sigh-like 'Sorry bastards...', Airanarie could not help but fix her gaze on his crouching figure, wondering if she was right to sense a crushing wave of regret lap around him, strong and lasting, going far beyond this little scuffle... Or maybe it was her projecting her own messy memories onto people again.  
  
Feeling her eyes on him, the man got up, turned to face her, and breathed out,  
  
'Maker's balls... Are you a...'  
  
'I am an elf,' she said evasively.  
  
Most people mistake her for a Qunari, but it feels wrong pretending to be one.  
  
He exhaled, with a small rasp.  
  
'Well, damn... Never seen elves like this before... But eh, who am I to second-guess someone who obviously knows... who they are. All right then. You said you were an Inquisition agent?'  
  
And with that, they got down to discussing business, and the Warden never breathed another word about Airanarie's past, quite content with just following her lead on the present.  
  
The Qunari mercenary was more or less the same during their little rendezvous on the Storm Coast - which also turned into a fight with some... Imperial slavers? What an odd turn of phrase, that. It is very unsettling to know that in this world, elves are the ones kept by other races as property (and the humans are the ones who suffer from that terrible, blinding disease of thinking themselves and their god superior).  
  
Unlike most of her companions, this 'Iron Bull' is about as tall as Airanarie, but the massive horns that he bears, like some kind of incredibly muscular Dunmeri minotaur, make her feel awfully small compared to him. He made quite a breathtaking first impression, towering over her as a glistening, boldly chiselled slab of granite - a monument fit for one of the countless incarnations of the fabled Orcish city of Orsinium - with raindrops tracing silvery serpentine paths along his thick neck and bulging shoulders. While in the background, the green belly of the sea rose and fell with a drowsy rumble, and the pearly froth disrupted the serene impression by mixing in with the blood of the dead slavers piled up in the shallows.  
  
The pupil of the mercenary's only eye jerked in its iris, which was the same colour as the sea, taking in Airanarie's features.  
  
'You are not Tal-Vashoth,' he murmured, frowning. 'Or Qunari. I know my people. But you don’t look like an elf or a human... Are you trying to disguise yourself as a Qunari for some reason? Badly? Shit, Krem never told me what sort of face you had! He just said you were "um, tall"!'  
  
'I am not disguising myself as anyone!' Airanarie protested. 'And I am an elf!'  
  
'An elf, huh?' he echoed. 'Tall like a bloody Vashoth? What tribe of the Dalish has evolved into folks like you? Well. I am not a Tamassran. It's none of my business who gave birth to you and how. Not yet anyway. My reports are only set to cover how you and your people deal with this Breach problem'.  
  
'Your... reports?'  
  
Now it was Airanarie's turn to parrot his words incredulously. The human boy Iron Bull had delegated to ask her to come to the coast had presented him as an independent mercenary. Whom would an independent mercenary report to?  
  
'Yeah,' the granite giant huffed. 'Let's start from the beginning. Ever heard of the Ben-Hassrath?'  
  
Well, she has now. Another group of ever-watchful spies, keeping their hand on the world's pulse for the shadowy, menacing power of the Qun, which sees the world as a tangled mess of flaws and imperfections, which needs to be straightened out and divided into neat little sections, each with its own assigned role to play. Violently. Rather like the wild jungle of Valenwood falling under Altmeri axes to clear room for the city of Root Sunder (now long since reclaimed by nature, with tigers roaming its dark, deserted, overgrown streets). Only with jets of blood flying instead of wood splinters.  
  
Given the Qunari's ultimate goal of conquest, Airanarie fears, more than a little bit, what they will do if they discover that there is a whole other world somewhere beyond the Fade. Also messy. Also with no straight lines and sections and roles (much ad her people have been trying to tell the other races what parts they are supposed to play). But all of Bull's reports go through Leliana, and she has assured Airanarie that he does only write about how they clear out rifts and how their monster kill count keeps growing (he is very invested into keeping the kill count).  
  
And outside of the actual spying, the granite giant is sincerely friendly. He has cheered for Airanarie during her horse riding lessons, and tossed himself right into the twitching mass of demons, to keep them all distracted while she recharged her magic, and grabbed Solas by the collar and twisted him around so the poor fellow could see that 'the boss' needed healing, and called her 'badass' multiple times.  
  
Either he is an exceptional actor never out of his role, or he does seem to care more for what Airanarie does than who she is. She hopes that some day, the same (in the latter sense, of course) will be true of Lady Vivienne - the impeccably beautiful, refined court mage, whose bearing and taste in attire remind Airanarie of her mother during her finest moments at some gathering of Aldmeri nobles. Proud and confident, with embroidered robes trailing after her like the plumage of a rare bird, and her head raised high with the knowledge that no-one in the room will dare insult her honour, much as some of them want to.  
  
Vivienne invited Inquisition representatives to a party she was hosting, by sending a page - master of overly complicated foot-shuffling and bowing - to seek them out in Val Royeaux, where they had gone to appeal to the Maker's priests (now, that spectacle is worth a tale of its very own, for another time).   
  
Before the journey to Orlais, Josephine supplied Airanarie with a full-face mask - both to respect the local customs (wearing masks everywhere except in the company of loved ones, as a symbol of society never seeing the real you! what an ingenious concept!) and to keep the gold-skinned Altmer from drawing too much unwanted attention. But then, the negotiations were concluded - after the unpleasant interruption caused by some rowdy house guest that decided to try and challenge Airanarie to a duel, and ended up frozen by the hostess' well-aimed ice spell, and then kicked out with disgrace, his mouth drooping under his clouded mask, and his silky vest blotted with dark patches of thaw water and nervous sweat - and Vivienne arrived in Haven, and... And saw Airanarie unmasked for the first time.  
  
As the golden elf trotted up to her with an awkward gesture of welcome, the court enchantress stopped dead in her tracks, snapped her fingers in a mechanical gesture, ready to cast a spell to defend herself from the unknown... creature, and finally shot a brusque question at a passing Josephine,  
  
'What is the meaning of this, my dear? I was informed that Lady Airanarie of the Inquisition was an elf! This... This is not an elf! She... it... is more reminiscent of a demon than anything else!'  
  
'Oh, no, no, Madame!' Josephine clucked, evidently in a rush to butter up the distinguished guest and convince her to stay with the Inquisition. 'Airanarie is, in fact, an elf! And our Templars have checked her for possession multiple times! She is just as much of a mortal being as you and I - and one worthy of admiration at that, for all the work she does!'  
  
'Hm. I shall see that for myself, if you please,' Vivienne said dryly. 'You do have precious few Templars, my dear'.  
  
Convincing Vivienne that she is not some sort of Dremora... demon in disguise is still a work in progress. Slow, painful progress. The enchantress did seem to approve, her mouth twitching upwards ever so slightly, when Airanarie dove into a pile of rubble amidst the ruins somewhere in the Hinterlands, and, choking on a throat-scraping cloud of dry mortar, emerged with one of the prized tomes thay marauders had stolen from the mages. And the 'Hm' she made while watching the elf grind crooked, gnarly, brownish medicinal roots - a future potion to be distributed among the wounded - was almost... praise-like.   
  
Perhaps Airanarie will get there yet.  
  
And then, there is that girl Sera.   
  
Oh, Sera. A walking (or, well, skipping and creeping up behind to see if she can 'scare the breeches off you') heartwarming reminder of Airanarie's travels in Valenwood. For, like so many Bosmer you would meet in the untamed grant oak groves, she is small and agile, has (a bit unsettlingly) ravenous eating patterns, elevates the craft of pranking to an almost ritual status, and is an eagle-eye shot with her bow.   
  
Though, of course, Airanarie keeps these musings to herself, as Sera would hate being compared to any and all elven peoples.  
  
She is also a member of the Thedosian Thieves Guild (which still appears to follow the 'take from the rich, give to the poor' tenet) - and quite fittingly, Airanarie recruited her after jogging through a maze of narrow, rat-infested alleyways on the flip side of the glittering Val Royeaux, where the cracked stone pavement was almost invisible under piles of rotting leftovers and discarded broken furniture and snatches of greasy rags, in a chase for a series of badly spelled clues attached to bright red handkerchiefs.   
  
At the end of this scavenger hunt, a puff-sleeved (and puffed-up) fire mage awaited, greeting Airanarie with a scorching bolt that narrowly missed her cheekbone; he must have been either Sheogorath-touched or impossibly full of himself, for he had assumed for some reason that Airanarie was his personal nemesis (she never got too deep into his reasoning, however, as Sera promptly arrived on the scene and felled him with an arrow in the face). And in the fight with him and his guards, Airanarie's Orlesian mask got knocked askew - and suddenly, the little thief was able to behold her in all of her golden glory.  
  
'Whoah...' she said, cocking her head from one shoulder to another and back again, like a puppy preparing to beg for treats.   
  
'You have... One weird mug! Is that like... The side effect of your glowy bits? I mean your hand, yeah, not... Though you are well-fit... But that doesn't matter right now; the important thing is, you glow! You really do glow!'  
  
And that phrase, that exclamation, which Sera chirped excitedly over and over again, was somehow what stuck with Airanarie most out of all her first meetings with the inner circle.  
  
Because Sera is not the only one so mesmerized by the combination of her flaring green scar and her golden skin.  
  
As her advisors have not announced to the common folk of Thedas who she is or where she came from, they have been left to make their own conclusions - and so they have. It has barely taken them (the elves especially) a week to decide that her uncommon physique has to be a mark of divinity. They call her Herald of Andraste, a reincarnation of their Maker's prophet, a modest elf that was taken into the Fade and completed her ascension into some place called the Black City, where her inner purity washed off at least some of the darkness (whatever that is supposed to mean), and the hidden gold poured out onto her, transforming her into a majestic entity, with flesh woven out of divine light.  
  
These... These are not her words. Gods, she blushes just recalling them.  
  
This is what whispered behind her back amidst the crowd of ooh-ing and aah-ing biddies in white caps and soot-stained aprons, or called out by bug-eyed self-proclaimed preacher to announce her arrival.  
  
These are the rumours that swathe her like a regal mantle as she walks through village streets, calming the agitated cries of grimy-faced impoverished merchants and craftsmen who want to know when the roads will be rebuilt and open for trade again; or shaking (as best she can) the hand of some star-struck, loose-jawed blacksmith or roof-thatcher and telling him that his family has been located and will return to him shortly; or squeezing her tall self inside tiny elven cottages and treating the angry blisters that ripple, tight with pus, along the jerking limbs of some poor farmer that was not quick enough to run away from a flame-spewing demon, and not human enough for his neighbours to come by and offer a soothing salve for his burns.  
  
They... They really do believe she is some sort of living goddess. Like Almalexia - one of the Tribunal that she told Solas about. A elven woman like her; tall and golden-skinned like her; bearer of the Ayem initial like her... And the first out the Three to go mad with greed and fear of being cast down from her pedestal. The first to turn on one of her very own brethren, and then on the great hero Nerevarine, who slew her like the vile witch she was...  
  
No. No! She cannot allow this to happen to her! She cannot allow the poison of undeserved worship to go to her head, to... turn her into a monster!   
  
And she will not! Her name may start with the same letter, but that is about all she has in common with the Dunmer goddess. Most importantly of all, Almalexia was alone in the end. Trusting no-one. Confiding in no-one.  
  
She, though - she does have people to trust. People to watch over her, to keep her from losing her sanity in the dazzle of godhood.   
  
She has Cassandra with her attempts to figure out the world, Leliana with her cold mind, Josephine with her resourcefulness, Cullen with his courage, Solas with his oddly personal interest in tales of tyrants' downfall, Varric with his keen eyes, Blackwall with a shared sensation of regret to remind her she's flawed, Iron Bull with his prowess of a mighty warrior and a cunning spy rolled in one, Vivienne with her lingering distrust that will help protect everyone from Airanarie if she ever turns evil, Sera with her closeness to the common people... And who knows how many more are yet to join her.   
  
To keep her grounded.   
  
To inspire her.  
  
To drown out the cries of the adoring crowd so she can better hear the groans of the hungry and the injured and the lost. So she can focus on doing the right thing - rather than on being someone she is not.


End file.
